Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Photoshop is not a verb

adobe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 59 posts

Re: Photoshop is not a verb

#2

Post by johnhenry »

I'm mostly disturbed by the sentence "Since Photoshop is a trademark, you should always use it as an adjective only to describe the Adobe products associated with the Photoshop brand.", as Photoshop is clearly a noun.

Re: Photoshop is not a verb

#3

Post by crasm »

johnhenry wrote: post #2

I'm mostly disturbed by the sentence "Since Photoshop is a trademark, you should always use it as an adjective only to describe the Adobe products associated with the Photoshop brand.", as Photoshop is clearly a noun.

I have an issue with the whole thing. I think they've already lost the trademark to the language.

  Correct:   The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software.
  Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.

Re: Photoshop is not a verb

#6

Post by wl »

crasm wrote: post #3
johnhenry wrote: post #2

I'm mostly disturbed by the sentence "Since Photoshop is a trademark, you should always use it as an adjective only to describe the Adobe products associated with the Photoshop brand.", as Photoshop is clearly a noun.

I have an issue with the whole thing. I think they've already lost the trademark to the language. Correct: The image was enhanced with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements software. Incorrect: The image was photoshopped.

I love how they expect people to assert their trademark rights with the ® symbol. Unless this document is aimed at Adobe employees or contractors, that's inappropriate.

Re: Photoshop is not a verb

#8

Post by adambrenecki »

johnhenry wrote: post #2

I'm mostly disturbed by the sentence "Since Photoshop is a trademark, you should always use it as an adjective only to describe the Adobe products associated with the Photoshop brand.", as Photoshop is clearly a noun.

This is how they want you to use it:

> Trademarks are proper adjectives and should be followed by the generic terms they describe.

> Correct: The image was manipulated using Adobe® Photoshop® software.

> Incorrect: The image was manipulated using Photoshop.

Adobe's own marketing pages consistently use the ostensibly "incorrect" usage though: http://www.adobe.com/au/products/photoshop.html

Re: Photoshop is not a verb

#9

Post by robotresearcher »

It doesn't matter what the actual status of the word in common usage is, they just have to show they are attempting to protect the trademark so that they can litigate to protect it in specific instances.

Adobe thoroughly enjoys the fact that 'photoshop' is synonymous with image editing. They just have to pretend otherwise. See also band-aid, aspirin, Hoover, Kleenex. (iOS capitalized the last two but not the first two)

Post reply on HN